Halloween

yeah so it was a few weeks ago, but here are Nathalie and William as Snow White and a police officer, with their fruit creatures auntie made them

getting back in the swing of things

This morning I drove Nathalie to school, and on the way to her school, we pass the hospital I was in (Grossmont). She looked at it and said "mommy, please dont go back to the hopistal, I missed you too much". OH my precious little girl I missed you more.

Just Discharged from the Hospital....

Tuesday night, during my study session I felt icky, kind of flu like. When I got home Tuesday night my head was throbbing and I was freezing. I climbed into bed, and hoped to sleep it off. When I woke up Wednesday morning, I had a horrible, unbearable headache. Throughout the day Wednesday my headache worsened, as someone who has never suffered from even a migraine, I thought that maybe this was what I was experiencing. I drug myself to pick Nathalie up from PreSchool on Wednesday, practically in tears, the pain was indescribable. Once home, I decided to call Sam, I told him something was really wrong, that I needed him home. I decided to take some motrin, the pain was making me feel like I might pass out. Once my husband arrived home, I headed to Urgent Care early Wednesday afternoon. After quick assesment at the Urgent care, based on my sypmtoms, the Dr. told me that I needed to be seen in the emergency room immeadiately. They wouldn't allow me to drive myself, and my sister picked me up from the urgent care and drove me straight to ER. My fever had reached 102.9, and they immeadiately performed a spinal tap to confirm that I had spinal meningitis. I was admitted to the hospital, and pumped full of antibiotics over the next 48 hours. Happy to be alive, considering the possibilities related to meningitis. Glad I followed my instinct and went to the dr. Glad to be at my moms, where I have assistance with my kids, while I continue on the road to recovery.

worried

my sisters best friend since middle school, is an amazing mother to two beautiful girls who are 3 and 1, and is expecting her first son in December. My sister called me this morning to tell me that R, had a seizure in her sleep last night and stopped breathing; thankfully, the seizure woke up her husband who called 911, as it stands she is in the hospital, 2 cm dialated, at this point baby boy would be about 6 weeks premature and most likely fine, but its still a very scary situation.

This morning

I went to Target, and I got the first book in the Twilight series. I want to get started now, but must straighten up my house. I also bought myself a cd, which I havent done in ages!

Time for me

I am sitting at a local cafe, one which I frequent often with a friend to study. One which contains free wifi, awesome soy chai lattes, and even more awesome, they are open until 2 am, and as a mom, trying to squeeze her way into pharmacy school, in just over a year, I am so appreciative that this place exists. It allows me to but my kids to bed, and still have time to catch up on my blog, er study.

what I really want

is an amazon kindle...seriously, so badly that I cant even put it into words.

I also want the entire twilight series to read....

Roseola

William has it. covered from head to toe, in his mouth even. cranky kid. no fun!

OBAMA!!!

In my adult life, as short lived as it has been, this is definitely the election I personally have had the most intrest in. I am sure that this is for several reasons, one being that this is only the second presidential election I have been eligible to vote for (age wise), the first time my "guy" didn't win, and instead we were left him. To say I look forward to his term in office coming to an end, would be an understatement. I believe that importantly, my interest in these elections is due largely to the fact that I am now a mom! This year I did my research, I watched the debates, I read the articles, I researched the propositions, and I voted with the confidence and hope that my guy would win and he did! I can't even begin to go into all the reasons why this was such a landmark election, or how overwhelmed with excitement I am for our new leader, to take office January 20, 2009. I am even more happy to live in a state that went BLUE for OBAMA!

On another note, I Can't believe that Prop 8 passed, to me its absurd and takes away fundamental rights, that had already been established.

Remembering Mrs. Bennett

Here is the link to the obituary of Nathalie's amazing teacher from all of last year! I am so blessed that this influential woman was a part of our lives, she will be missed and loved by so many.

and, just in case anybody else needs reference of a great book for preschool aged children regarding death, I personally found Lifetimes to be fantastic!

Furthermore, I had heard that Nathalie's teacher's father had been "sick", after doing some research I found this article, and realized that there is no question why this woman was such an amazing educator. Look at all her father has done for charter schools.

What is on the Christmas lists in our household

My daughter wants rain boots. Although we live in San Diego and the annual rain fall here is miniscule she wants some! She has a pair that we purchased when she was just shy of 3, and she still trys to squeeze into them, I thought Ok, thats a good christmas gift. So I began browsing, online of course, and I came across these lavender Mary Jane style rain boots, and loved them. However, being one always in search of a bargan, I felt the 27.00 price tag was a little high, for rain boots, and was aiming for closer to a 20 dollar price range. You can only imagine how excited I was to come across this alternative from Target. Not only are they less than half the price of the originals I actually think the floral accent makes them even cuter! What a deal, of course I snagged them up instantly, there was no way I was risking them running out, they are on clearance after all. At that rate, I'll hopefully find a cute umbrella to match and walk away still around the 30 dollar mark!

Nathalie also loves dress up! Anything princess, and dress up is a double bonus! I scored half price costumes at work yesterday, and got both a Cinderella and a princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) dress for a total of 16 dollars! I figure I'll get her some other dress up accesories, and I want to buy or build a wooden chest for her to keep all of her dress up things in!

At least I have started in the Nathalie department.

William loves anything with wheels, parts, dirt, balls etc. He loves animals ALLL ANIMALS but especially ones that "roar", Dinosaurs, Lions, Tigers, Bears etc..... I saw this pirate doll and had to get it, a little more than I would normally spend on one doll, but its awesome and Manhattan toys makes great toys! In the animal department, have you seen these from Finn & Thatcher? I think I'm going to order one of each, I was going to skip the "bull" but considering that both William and Nathalie are Taurus' the bull may be a needed object in our household.

Ok so whats on the Christmas lists in your households? I need more ideas, but at least am moving in the right direction!

Nablopomo is back

and I'm in. nablopomo I think I can do it, it will be a definite challenge, but I pretty much made it happen last year, so why not try again this year. Nathalie seems to running a fever tonight, and may stay home from school if it is still present in the morning. I think she just had too much going on these past few days, between the halloween festivities, a soccer game Saturday morning, Willy Wonka play Saturday night, her poor little body is probably just tired! So we will see how she is in the morning.

Some Very Sad News!

All Full names are replaced with initials, to protect indivudal privacy

Yesterday morning I got Nathalie all ready for school, Snow White costume on, Pumpkin Cupcakes for class party in car and away we went! We arrived to her school, I signed her in, handded her "cupcakes" to her teacher, and her teacher said, "you need to go see Pat," (Pat is the Owner of Nathalie's school). I was concerned, I wondered if it was something Nathalie had done at school, or if maybe she was retireing. So to the office I went. As I was entering, another parent was leaving, and was sad, tearful. I entered and Mrs. M (Pat), looked sorrowful. I sat*down. She said I am really sorry to be the one to tell you this, but we lost Mrs. B*, (Mrs. B* was Nathalie's teacher all of last year, the first person we ever had entrusted our daughter to that was not a family member.) I was confused, wondering what could possibly cause this "loss", had she decided to move, was she asked to leave? The next sentence she had to share was extremely painful, "Mrs. B died yesterday?" I had seen, and spoken to her on Wednesday, when dropping Nathalie off at school.

Mrs. B was 30 years old, over the past few months her weight had melted away, many at the school assumed she was dieting. Apparantely, she called in sick on Thursday, and collapsed early in the day, her husband was unable to wake her, and called 911, she was ambulanced to the hospital, and died shortly after noon. She had been told by dr's not long ago that she may have delayed diabetes, they had scheduled an appointment to do further testing, but she died. The true cause of death is not yet known, and will be revealed after the autopsy is performed.

There are so many things I'd like to have been able to say to this amazing woman, who my daughter, husband and I respected, trusted and admired, things that I will not get the chance to say! The sadness that fills my heart is unexplainable. My daughter is sad, but said its okay because Mrs. B is in heaven with her grandma and grandma is a nice person so she and Mrs. B will be friends, that made my heart smile.

Success!!

William and I made a trip to the store this morning to replace some of our dairy products, with those which are non-dairy....We ended up purchasing Pacificfoods Chocolate soy milk (individual box was under 70 cents, so I bought 2 for "on the go" to see if he'd like them, he requested one on the car ride home and consumed it within 5 minutes, thus I will be returning to purchase more of those!) I also purchased some rice milk, some vanilla soy milk, some soy yogurt, one vanilla and one blueberry. I purchased one box of glutino gluten free crackers, and really they aren't that good, but maybe they will grow on us. I plan on making a trip to whole foods sometime in the next week and stocking up on many more cf and gf foods, but at least we are making steps in the right direction!

Nathalie's school Halloween Carnival and the awesome gluten free snack I discovered

Was last friday (the 24th) the kids had a great time running around playing games, it was fun for them, and even a bit fun for us. As a family of 4 it isn't often we get to do things together, with 2 working parents and a mama in school, the kids normally have one or the other of us at a time, so it really was a nice treat for us all. They had a raffle, and Nathalie asked if we could buy 3 tickets, 1 for her, 1 for William, and 1 for mom and dad to share, so we did. We actually won a great prize a Large Trader Joe's Bag full of goodies! In this bag of goodies were some things, giant spaghetti noodles, marinara sauce, some organic green tea conditioner (for mama :) ), but also was Kettle Corn, that is....GLUTEN FREE, and it is dELICious. William agrees, he has been snacking on it over the past few days, so I know this will definitely become a staple in our household under the new dietary restraints. Also were some gluten free thai sesame rice crisp bars that William enjoys a bit, but I think its more of an acquired taste, I personally loved them!

ok, so most likely, most of what you'll be hearing for a while from me will regard the food thing

Ok, so I spent a lot of time last night researching.and researching. and researching some more. And the approach I am going to take with William, is to become GFCF in 6 weeks. Why so long you may ask? Well the reasons are numerous, but the main number one reason is this, in kids that have developmental delays, speech delays, behavioral delays that will truly benefit from a GFCF diet, the foods that they are so addicted too actually act opiod-like to there little brains, so they truly are addicted. Due to this fact, things can actually get worse, before they get better, a risk I am definitely willing to take, given the results I expect we'll see in the end! So here is the "low-down" of the first 6 weeks, as is explained on the TACA website:

Starting on Saturday, November 1st (just so that its easier to keep track of,) William will receive no more casein (milk, containing products), this initial phase will be a 2 week elimination of all casein containing products. After 2 weeks, beginning November 15th, William will remain on a Casein free diet and be introduced to GFCF breakfasts, I hear that Van's GFCF waffles are good, he will still be allowed eggs, I will probably try a couple different gf cereal's, with soy or rice milk... At the beginning of week 4, November 22, the above mentioned eliminations will remain in place, and we will introduce GFCF Lunches, this week will be one of the hardest in our house, as for Lunch my son eats PB & J sandwiches, etc, and the suggestions on the TACA website for lunches aren't exactly things I want to be feeding him, although I will try these chicken nuggets, the kicker is trying to find them locally, or else find some friends who need some too? (ANYONE?) and then we could place a group order! Week 5, Which will begin November 29, will bring the introduction of GF dinners. In week 6, beginning Dec 6, GFCF snacks (although as we run out of the things that contain Gluten, I will be replacing them with gluten free). TACA goes on to list weeks 7-10, but I am happy to say that in the department of soaps, shampoos, lotions, sunscreens, toothpaste and laundry detergent we currently use products that do not contain gluten and Casein. I will replace all of my baking products with those that are gluten and casein free.

As far as Nathalie and the rest of us go, we will obviously follow these dietary restrictions in our home, not only to support William, but to benefit us all. However, I will allow Nathalie to mantain a normal diet at school, for now, but next year, I will be packing her lunches anyhow, so they too will be gluten and casein free.

Update on William, and the new diet that will be entering our house

Friday, I had the priveledge of attending the DAN (defeat autism now)! Fall Conference at the Town and Country Hotel in Mission Valley! I learned so many very interesting and helpful things. Although Willliam is not officially autistic, he does portray quite a number of "autistic" traits. From everything I have learned, both Sam and I agree that he will benefit greatly from a GFCF diet (gluetin and Casein free) which means, no dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt) and no bread (wheat, oats, rye)....no chicken nuggets, eliminating almost everything that he is so use to eating. An interesting note on that fact is that kids (and adults alike) crave that which they are most sensitive too, in William's case I believe this to be Bread, this boy loves bread will ask for it anytime he can see it..I invested in a great "kid-friendly" GFCF cookbook, and have found recipies to make our own chicken nuggets, that are gluten free....etc....I will also be adding some supplements in for him, he just received vitamin c chewables, that he will now take everyday along with his multivitamin. Furthermore, I have ordered him some melatonin, to hopefully help even out his sleep pattern (for those of you not intune to the lack of sleep William provides us, he usually does not go to sleep until 12 or 1, and Friday night I was actually up with him until 3). I intend to add Omega-3's to his diet as well, I just need to find him a chewable brand...... There are several other options in the form of supplements, but these will be the initial few we introduce to him. Rather than eliminating all of the restricted foods at once, I will initially begin with Casein/dairy, no milk, no cheese and no yogurt, of course no other dairy containing products, but those are the three biggies in our house. After 3 weeks of 100% elimination of dairy, we will remove the gluten as well. During the initial 3 week period as we run out of gluten containing products, they will be replaced with those which are gluten-free. So any of you that have ideas in the gfcf free category that will help me out please let me know!

our little soccer girl

Nathalie is thoroughly enjoying her first season of soccer! When Tuesdays role around (practice day) she is optimistic, and happy all day long. At practice she listens to her coaches and runs with her team. On Saturdays (game day) she gets so happy when putting on her oversized uniform! She loves it, and I'm glad

anna rose

long overdo, here is our precious granddaughter Anna Rose! The cuteness kills me, it kills me even more that she is 3000 miles away, these few momentary glimpses will have to do for now. Sams daughter, Briana who is Anna's mommy is doing great, she is such a proud mother who brags about every coo Anna makes. As a teenage mother it can't be easy, but I am so glad she is giving her little girl every fighting chance!

William

does not have autism, but just some speech and developmental delays. I am melancholy about it all, I'm glad he doesnt have a label to an extent, but at the same time I struggle that we will be able to get him all the help he needs/deserves.